


rapture and smoke

by encroix



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encroix/pseuds/encroix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-season finale. The lessons Bellamy Blake learns from the Ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rapture and smoke

**Author's Note:**

> This came out as more gradual developing Bellamy/Clarke than I intended but there you go.

He doesn't believe in the Ground.  
  
Not in the way that he doesn't believe that it's there - he knows better, has seen the pictures, read the books, absorbed the lessons - but that he doesn't believe in it the way other people do. The lilt that people get into their voices when they speak of _returning to it_ as if they had just come on a long voyage.  
  
He doesn't believe in that kind of lie.  
  
No, space feels more familiar - the black of it, stretching out like an oily pool into forever, seen through the small rectangular windows of the Ark. And from his arm of the Ark, there's nothing but black space. Frigid air that seems to creep in from outside that keeps the metal too cold to walk on, that keeps their muscles in a constant state of ache, that reminds them of how hungry they are.  
  
And even if he could believe in it, he wouldn't. Not like the people who used to live near them on their block, speaking of a return to the Ground as another chance, another life, another opportunity. He's read all the books. He knows how the story goes. Chances go to those that take them, and that's all. People on his block? They wouldn't get anything from the Ground other than a warm death.  
  
And maybe that's enough for them.  
  
It isn't for him.  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
( _life is bigger than this_ , his mother tells him, over and over, and he starts to believe it the way all sons believe their mothers.  
  
there is breakfast, and octavia's emergence from underneath; and his mother reading poetry and reciting history lessons as he wastes time, trying to avoid heading to classes himself;  
  
later, lunch with the other students at class, the rich to their tables and the poor to theirs and the stale taste of nearly-spoilt rations that have been salted to the point of being inedible, which he eats because he knows the price of bread and rice, and the cost of working, and the cost of being alive, and the sharp taste of resentment at knowing all of those things. somebody comments on his shoes, worn to the sole, and he relishes the noise of his knuckles connecting against their jaw.  
  
 _a problem child_ , someone whispers to his mother, and he can see the way her own jaw tenses at the remark.  
  
 _you are bigger than this_ , his mother tells him, and then it is a cold dinner of pocketed rolls from the ration line, and dried nuts and beans, all before octavia slips back underneath the floor.  
  
his stomach rumbles, but he savors that too - it is a good feeling to be hungry, and remember what it is to be wanting. it makes the fight that much more satisfying, and he is itching to fight.  
  
 _you will be important, bellamy_ , his mother says, stroking his hair as he lies in bed, trying to sleep. _i know it. i raised you to be._ )

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
The Ground doesn't care if you believe.  
  
The fall from atmosphere is hard, and his elbows knock back against the hard metal of the wall as they rattle their way down.  
  
When they hit the ground, the vibrations rattle through his teeth, and he cuts into his lip without noticing. The blood is a sharp tang. An aftertaste of being reborn.  
  
He presses his tongue to the cut, worries it so it stings.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
The ground is full of lessons that way.  
  
The first week, it's all dogs baring their teeth - him, included - and staking out claims and realizing what it means to be people here. And the longer they've spent living here, the longer the ground has reminded them of just how small they are. And it isn't like space. It isn't a question of contrast - space, sprawling, black, and enormous, and yourself, tiny and brief and weak - but one more complex, more insidious.  
  
Here, the ground gives life and water and warmth just as much as it gives dangerous animals and lightning and the night. Welcoming as far as it is deadly. Opportunity as much as risk.  
  
It keeps you alive only as long as it takes for you to tie your own noose. (Funny thing, that.)  
  
It keeps coming.  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
It's one of their few patrols together after the plague. Not quite dawn, when the sky is still streaked brown-blue, and light beginning to spill in little by little.  
  
Her hair is down and unwashed, the strands twisted together in larger tendrils from the way she slept on it. They don't speak as they circle the camp, and it's cold enough outside that their breath keeps fogging.  
  
"What do you think's going to happen?" she says, and he narrows his eyes to assess her, to read the question she's really asking.  
  
"At this point," he says, "I think it's unavoidable."  
  
She hums, her shoulders sagging as she leans against a tree trunk. "It's so beautiful, isn't it?" she says. "When we got here, I thought..."  
  
"You thought what?"  
  
"Well," she replies, "I certainly didn't think this."  
  
He chuckles.  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"What did you think was going to be down here?"  
  
He wipes at his mouth with his hand, his hand tightening around the rifle. "I didn't," he says.  
  
She scoffs. "Everybody thought about the ground."  
  
His mouth flattens into a thin line. "Maybe where you were from," he replies.  
  
"Are you ever going to stop holding that against me?" she says. "We're on the ground now. Things are different."  
  
"Not that different."  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
He thinks of her now. A lesson from the ground, too, in her own way.  
  
The largest lesson: that gravity means more than just a force meant to keep your feet on the ground. That it can wound, and humble, and draw blood without ever doing anything more than being itself.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
He doesn't die. Alternatively: he isn't dead.  
  
There's still life in him that beats its way through him with steady painful reminders. A broken rib, maybe. A breath that fights its way out and in with difficulty.  
  
He is alive.  
  
  
(The last battle is meant to be an impressive stage - hordes of enemy combatants, and the thrill of adrenaline, and the knowledge of seeing defeat ten paces before it's set to come in and destroy you. Destroy everything.  
  
They've made too many mistakes to win this, and he knows that. Looking at her before she shuts the door tells him that she knows that now, too.  
  
They aren't only her mistakes. They aren't only his, either.  
  
She would have wanted as many people to survive as possible, and that's what makes it so easy to accept. If she's looking defeated, it can only mean that they've exhausted all other possible avenues of fighting. And it's fine. It's fine -  
  
Octavia has gone away, and is as safe as he can ensure, and that means that he can do this for them. For all of them. Fight to the last, and sacrifice himself knowing that it means an end.  
  
If there's anything the ground has taught him, not every death needs to have purpose.)  
  


 

 

 

  
  
All he remembers is the fire. The heat licking its way up his back, the rancid smoke choking its way down his throat. It would be the way for him to go, he figured. Not like his mother, quick and momentary and cold, freezing her way through space.  
  
His would need to be one deserving of him.  
  
Long. Painful.  
  
It's dark in the room, and his eyes are struggling to adjust to focus, to find shapes, to find anything.  
  
"Hey," someone says. "Don't move yet."  
  
"Is that a threat?" he rasps, his throat pulsing painfully with the words.  
  
"You were out for a couple days," the voice says. "I don't know if it's safe for you to move yet."  
  
There's a soft click then, and yellow light fills the room.  
  
"Finn," he grunts, moving to sit up. A sharp pain cuts across his rib and he winces as he pushes himself up the rest of the way anyway.  
  
"You in a lot of pain?"  
  
He grimaces in response, but shakes his head. "Where the hell are we?"  
  
It's a small room - maybe three feet or so of space between where Finn sits and where he's lying down - and there isn't much to see. A few discarded tins of food, probably from the previous owners. Everything smells a little bit like mildew.  
  
"Clarke and I found this place," Finn says. "It's an old bunker. Close enough to camp for me to drag you here."  
  
He rolls his shoulder, and the joint pops. "Thanks."  
  
Finn grunts.  
  
"What happened to the others?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"What do you mean you don't know? Have you been up to check on them since?"  
  
"No, I was down here making sure you didn't die!"  
  
He braces himself against his arm and pushes himself up to standing, forcing himself to stay as the room gradually stops spinning. "Well, I'm not dead," he says, "so do whatever it is you have to do and let's go."  
  
"You don't even know if it's safe out there!"  
  
He scoffs. "So, what? You're just going to stay down here until it's safe? What if they kill Raven? Or Clarke? You're going to take that chance?"  
  
Finn doesn't say anything. Just stands and brushes his hands against the front of his pants.  
  
"Fine," he says. "You want to go? Then lead the way."

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
The camp is barely recognizable.  
  
The drop-ship is still standing, its exterior scorched black. The gates have largely been destroyed, and what remains is in pieces. Ashes and bones are littered everywhere.  
  
"There's no sign of anybody here," Finn says, tracking around the perimeter of the camp.  
  
"They were inside the drop ship when everything went off, and I don't see any bodies here that weren't burnt. Do you?"  
  
The sun pokes through the canopy of trees, scattering light across the ground, and he kneels, his fingers running through the thick layer of ash lying over the soil.  
  
"You think they were taken somewhere?"  
  
"Well, they definitely aren't here," he answers.  
  
"All right, well, I don't see a trail here," he replies. "And trust me, if there was one, I'd see it."  
  
 "It might be further out," he says. "There was too much happening here between the battle, and everything else. There has to be something."  
  
"Maybe you just don't want to accept it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The answer's here. Maybe you don't want to see it, but - "  
  
"I'll believe they're dead as soon as we see the bodies," Bellamy replies. "But for now? We keep looking. Fan out, and stay within shouting distance."  
  
Finn touches two fingers to his forehead in mock salute. "Aye, aye," he deadpans.  
  
Bellamy sags the moment he disappears out of eyeshot, brushing his hand against his forehead in frustration.  
  
There used to be such a thing as right choices, but here on the ground, everything has been a difficult option to an even more difficult option, and it seems that he's always choosing the wrong one. Yet they're still here - he's still here - and all he can do is keep moving.  
  
"Bellamy!" Finn calls, and he runs, following the noise to its source.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I just found - Bellamy, your forehead, you've got..."  
  
A body lies against one of the trunks of trees, eyes still open, bullet wound visible against his chest. It isn't one of theirs, or any of the Grounders - someone from a rival tribe they haven't met yet.  
  
"You think it was them?"  
  
Finn shrugs. "Must be."  
  
"Then there has to be a trail or something around here somewhere. They laid him like this."  
  
"Do you honestly think that we'll find them alive?"  
  
Bellamy scans the ground for any imprints in the mud, any blood, any patterns of trampled underbrush. "I thought you trusted these people," he says.  
  
"I do, but - "  
  
"We don't have time for this. You can either be useful or stand around wasting some more time. Which is it?"  
  
He huffs and starts treading down an alternate path. "You're going the wrong way, you know. It keeps going in this direction."

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
They set up camp once it grows dark. They don't have much, and the ground is still dangerous, so they try to make bed in the low boughs of trees.  
  
The remains of their campfire are dying down to embers, and the night sky is clear, the moon glowing brightly and illuminating the stars. They haven't spoken in hours, and Bellamy's beginning to feel the weight of the awkwardness as much as the pain in his side.  
  
"How's your shoulder?" Finn asks, poking at the dying embers with a thin branch.  
  
He grunts in reply. "Could be worse."  
  
Another silence falls, and the fire dies down to low embers. The light nearly completely extinguished.  
  
"I've just been thinking a lot about what I'd say to her, you know?" Finn whispers, running his hand through his hair. "If - when we see them again."  
  
"Raven?" he says.  
  
Finn swallows, humming in response. "Yeah," he says. "You haven't thought about it? What you'll say when we see them again?"  
  
He moves towards the makeshift bed he has set up, clambering awkwardly to rest against the trunk of the tree. "You should try to sleep."  
  
"I mean it," Finn says, moving towards his own. "You haven't even thought about it a little?"  
  
"I don't think I'll see Octavia again," he says.  
  
Finn doesn't push it any further.  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
(He hasn't thought about what reuniting with the rest of the camp will look like. If they'll still think of him as the leader that he used to be. If the people that he was relying on would still be there.  
  
All he knows is how he'd react.  
  
If they're alive, that's one thing.  
  
If they aren't, that's another.  
  
He doesn't think about it.)  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
It's raining the day they arrive at the outer fences of Mt. Weather.  
  
"It can't be," Finn says. "They can't - "  
  
He frowns, eyeing the security towers and the gates. "We have to figure out a way to get inside."  
  
Finn shoots him a look of disbelief. "You really think that we're going to be able to break into a military base? Are you kidding?"  
  
"Come on," he says. "Are you with me or not?"  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
This is how they bring him in: at gunpoint, blindfolded.  
  
He doesn't know what's happened to Finn, or if he's even all right. The ground is rocky and uneven outside the base, and he stumbles as they force him along.  
  
There's the crackle of a radio, and words that he doesn't catch, before they finally stop.  
  
It's silent.  
  
He doesn't pray. Doesn't see his mother, doesn't have his life flash before his eyes. There's the sting of a needle and the last thought he manages is a wish that it be quick, whatever it is.  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
She's the first thing he sees when he regains consciousness. Dressed in white and surrounded by it. His head still feels foggy, and when he tries to sit up, he can't.  
  
"Am I dead?" he whispers, and she casts a worried glance over her shoulder.  
  
She says something that he doesn't catch, that floats in and out of his understanding. His legs feel leaden, and every time he thinks to move, his body doesn't cooperate.  
  
He thinks of reaching for her, and feels the full weight of his body - of gravity on his body - and can't. Everything is iron and stone.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says. "For everything."  
  
She presses a hand to his forehead, her touch cool and soothing.  
  
"Please," he says. "Just let me go."  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
To say she wasn't expecting to see him is an understatement.  
  
“You have to do something,” she says, rushing towards the overseeing doctor. “Please.”  
  
“Control yourself, please, Ms. Griffin, or we'll have to remove you.”  
  
“It's whatever you used to sedate him,” she says. “He's having some kind of allergic response to it.”  
  
One of the doctors taps their pen against the clipboard. “We've been observing him very closely. Don't worry.” She sees the corner of his eye wrinkle with the movement of a smile – something meant to be reassuring. “You care for him, don't you?”  
  
She takes a step back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought he was dead,” she answers.  
  
He's still writhing restlessly on the bed, murmuring errant phrases here and there that she can't catch, caught in some kind of fever dream.  
  
“That'll be all then, Ms. Griffin,” someone says, and the two guards at the door come to escort her out.  
  
“Wait,” she says. “Wait, can't I just stay to see – to see if he's all right? Please!”  
  
The guards each grip her tightly on the arm and force her to move towards the door.  
  
“Please, doctor! Please!”  
  
He clicks his pen once, jots a note down against the clipboard. He doesn't turn. “He'll be fine, Ms. Griffin. Absolutely fine. We're going to take good care, don't worry.”  
  
The guards walk with her all the way back to her room.  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
She thought he was dead.  
  
After all, what else could have been believed in the sight of destruction that complete? Everyone who had been in front of the drop ship had been charred to ash and bone, and yet somehow, he's still alive.  
  
None of the deaths had been easy to accept, but his had been one of the most difficult. His and Finn's. There was no other way around it – they had trusted her to do the right thing and make the right decision, and she had misled everyone. Had run them in a circle back to where they started, only to have to burn down everything they'd built just to be able to survive.  
  
The worst part – what had stayed with her for months – was the way he had looked at her right before she did it. It had been the same gesture of assent that she'd given when they'd kept Lincoln in the drop ship all those days ago. As if he had known, as if he had seen what was coming and agreed. The thought of it – of what had happened to him – had made her stomach turn for weeks afterward, and now -  
  
Now he's restrained to a bed in one of the exam rooms, running a fever.  
  
Locked away from the rest of them, just like Raven.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
She's there again when he wakes up, her hands cool and damp, and the noise of dripping water loud in the small space. There's machinery, too, humming and beeping, but other than that, no other noise. He tries to sit up, and her hand settles on his shoulder, pushing him back against the pillows.  
  
“You shouldn't sit up yet,” she says, wringing out a rag into the sink before applying it against his forehead. “You aren't recovered enough yet.”  
  
The room is all white with the exception of a single painting against the wall. “Is this real?” he says. “Are you – are we - “  
  
“We're alive,” she says. “You're at Mount Weather.”  
  
He moves to sit up then and she gives him another hard push to keep him reclining. “Bellamy, what did I just say?”  
  
He winces. “Just checking.”  
  
“You had a lot of untreated burns, they said,” she explains. “And a broken rib, I think, and you dislocated something else. They didn't really let me see your chart.”  
  
“Maybe that's because you aren't really a doctor,” he quips, and she narrows her eyes at him. “Are the others here?”  
  
She looks behind her shoulder again, and he sees the flash of a scar against her neck as she moves. Leaning in close, she mouths cameras to him as she shrugs. “I haven't seen all of them,” she says. “I wouldn't know.”  
  
“What about Finn?” he says.  
  
“Finn? Finn's here? Finn's alive?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, giving his shoulder a light roll to ease the tension. “He's the one that saved me. He took me to some kind of bunker.”  
  
She exhales, her body sagging with relief.  
  
“I thought you were dead,” she says. “Both of you.”  
  
“What are we doing here, anyway?”  
  
“We're in quarantine,” she says. “They're checking us for – well, I don't know what, they won't tell me, but every week, there's always three or four new diagnostics they want to run.”  
  
He arches a brow. “You think they're using us as guinea pigs?”  
  
“I don't know,” she says. “They've treated us well so far, but...”  
  
“But you don't trust them.”  
  
She sinks into the chair by his bed with a sigh. “How are you feeling? That's the real reason they sent me in here anyway.”  
  
He chuckles. “To ask me how I'm feeling?”  
  
Her mouth presses into a thin line. “To see if you're well enough for interrogation.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says. “I am.”  
  
“Bellamy - “  
  
“Listen to me,” he says. “I'm fine.”  
  
She frowns. “Okay.”  
  
A loud buzzer goes off in the room then and she stands.  
  
“They're calling me,” she says. “They think I've gotten everything out of you that I possibly could for today.”  
  
Halfway to the door, he calls, “Hey.” She doesn't turn. There's a long pause and then, “It's good to see you again.”  
  
She nods once, her shoulders squaring. This shouldn't belong to them – it doesn't – and she isn't going to give them any more than what they force out of her.  
  
“I'll see you soon,” she says.  
  
The buzzer sounds again, insistent.  
  
As she slips back into the hallway, she hears him call, “Safe passage on your travels...”  
  
 _May we meet again._  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
He gradually recovers enough to be moved to Block C, where the others are. He doesn't understand how he keeps finding himself in the situation – facing his own death again and again only to see her face, and be saved. Even when there doesn't ever seem to be hope of survival.  
  
A few of the others he manages to see during mealtimes and by chance – glimpsing madly through the windows of doors and hoping to catch a familiar face. Monty, Miller, Jasper. From what he's seen, he doesn't think Octavia's here, and he isn't sure if he's glad or disappointed.  
  
He wouldn't want her to be here – too many memories of living under the floor, of surveillance – but he misses her. And, at least, if she were here, he'd know that she was alive. That she was safe enough. Anywhere else?  
  
Not that Mt. Weather doesn't have his oddities. Clarke was right to be suspicious – the staff are courteous, at best, but hardly forthcoming, and never kind in a way that rings genuine. They're here for a reason, and he isn't looking forward to finding out what that reason is. Given what life on the ground has been like so far, there's no hope of it being anything other than horrifying.  
  
Just like the Ark again in its own way – secretive and cold with a pretense of compassion. He wonders if the world will ever stop remaining the same, even at the end of all things.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
An interview session with one of the doctors, and he's given three small blue caplets of something to take beforehand.  
  
 _Tell us about the Ark_ , one of the doctors says. _Tell us everything you know._  
  
“I don't know anything,” he says.  
  
There's the click of a pen and the scribble of something down against the clipboard.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
It takes her another week to ask about Finn.  
  
He doesn't expect her to hold out that long, but somehow she manages. Especially since both of them know he's managed to evade being captured by the Mountain Men somehow.  
  
“How was he, the last time you saw him?” she says over lunch.  
  
He spears a peach slice, wet with syrup. “Better than me.”  
  
“Bellamy.”  
  
“The last time I saw him, I was trying to drag him up here with me and he didn't seem really set on the idea. That's how he looked. That's what I remember.”  
  
Her mouth purses and she takes another small bite of her mashed potatoes. “I'm just trying to - “  
  
“I know what you're just trying to do,” he says. “But I think we need to find a way to break out of here with as many of the others as we can.”  
  
“They know where we set up camp, Bellamy,” she says. “Where do you plan on going? How exactly do you think that we'll be able to do this without them knowing? They might have even put trackers underneath your skin somewhere for all you know.”  
  
He scratches idly at the bruise on his wrist from where he'd been connected to the IV. He hadn't considered that. He wouldn't have.  
  
Ducking his head, he answers, “Well, I'm trying.”  
  
“So am I.”  
  
“I'm sure he's okay,” he says, after another silence. “If they had him, they would have brought him in for questioning by now. He probably doubled back to the bunker, and is staying there until he can figure out what to do.”  
  
She gives a deep exhale.  
  
“This place is unbelievable,” he says.  
  
She hums. “It doesn't seem possible,” she says. “What we're trying to do.”  
  
“No,” he says. “But we're the hundred. We've done impossible before, haven't we?”  
  
She gives a faint smile.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
What happens is a sloppy jailbreak.  
  
Series of flash grenades and smoke bombs detonated in various empty offices, in front of security cameras – enough for a diversion. They manage to smuggle a few small arms out of the gun rooms, and then, it's all chaos.  
  
They don't manage to stick together, and the labyrinthine layout of the base leaves them at a disadvantage. Raven's the only one with the door codes for the main gates.  
  
He's got two magazines – twelve rounds each. The halls are full of fog, and when he tracks the route they've planned, he ducks low to the ground and hopes that he'll make it out of here alive.  
  
The odds aren't worth talking about.  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
They're meant to reconnect at the outer fences of the base.  
  
He's late.  
  
By the time he makes it out to the rendezvous point, it's dark, and there doesn't appear to be any others around. He tries to track the trail back towards the general direction of the camp, but her voice is loud in his head with all of the disadvantages of going back.  
  
Still, he can't think of any other alternative plan. Sometimes looking back is the only way to go forward.  
  
Tucking one of the guns against his pants, he heads out into the dark.  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
She finds him.  
  
He's on his way back to the bunker, taking care not to use the exact same trail he used to head to Mount Weather in the first place.  
  
It's near sunset when he hears it. A rustle of the underbrush. Someone beating away at the foliage.  
  
He has his gun drawn and cocked, low at his side, backing himself against one of the nearby trees when they push through, guns at the ready.  
  
“Bellamy?” she says, lowering her weapon.  
  
He uncocks his and lowers it back to his side, stepping out into the sunlight.  
  
“Bellamy,” she repeats, taking three large steps towards him and wrapping her arms against him. He leans down, his arm coming up to brush errant circles against her back. “I thought you were dead. We got out and we didn't see you at the meeting point, and we thought - “  
  
She pulls back to look at him, and he can see the scratches she has from one of the fences. He doesn't look much better, face blooming with bruises and a split lip from his few run-ins with individual guards near the entryways of the base.  
  
She clears her throat then, taking care to step away from him.  
  
“I wasn't sure whether or not you made it either,” he says, turning to look at the group of people behind her. It isn't many – certainly not what their old numbers were – but it's sizable.  
  
He doesn't want to think about the possibility of any left behind.  
  
She turns to look at them, too, before turning back to him with a terse nod. “We got as many as we could.”  
  
“Well, Princess, what now?” he says. “We can't take them to the bunker; they aren't going to all fit. And we can't go back to camp.”  
  
She brushes her hand over her eyes. “We need to find a new place to set up camp. Somewhere close to the water, but not so close that we're facing attacks from whoever's on the other side.”  
  
“Can't get close to the mountain now, either.”  
  
She makes a frustrated noise low in her throat. “We don't seem to have very many options.”  
  
“Or any friends.”  
  
“So what do you want to do?” she says. “We can't stay here.”  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
The two of them head off to scout new potential locations for making camp while Miller stays with the others and the rest of the weapons.  
  
There's more foliage here than where they had dropped initially, and Bellamy swats at the saplings as they push through, forging their own path through the forest. “Wherever we find, it isn't going to be easy,” he says. “We have a lot fewer people, and we're going to need to do twice as much work clearing the area just to set up.”  
  
“Maybe we'll get lucky,” she says, dryly, “and find a cave.”  
  
He smiles, and his lip pulses with pain. He licks at the dried blood, and tastes iron. “I wouldn't hold out any hope.”  
  
She hums.  
  
He wanders to the perimeter of the area, surveying the height of the surrounding trees, halfway considering making use of the high canopies of the trees like the Grounders had.  
  
“Bellamy?” she calls.  
  
He turns back and finds her several yards away, heading off into the deeper wood. “Yeah?”  
  
She extends an arm back towards him, gesturing him closer. “Come look at this.”  
  
He jogs over to her and turns to see what she's looking at. A sizable brook, running with clear water; a small copse of trees dotting what looks like even land; birch trees here instead of the taller firs.  
  
“What do you think?” she says.  
  
“I think it works,” he says.  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
He retrieves Finn from the bunker a few days later. They need the extra hands.  
  
“What happened to you?” Finn asks.  
  
“I could ask you the same question,” he returns.  
  
Their walk back is unevenly quiet, both of them biting down whatever accusations they could level.  
  
“I thought that they'd taken you,” Finn says, as they tramp through towards the new camp.  
  
“They did. Where were you?”  
  
Finn doesn't answer.  
  
“Come on. Pick it up a little. I want to make it back there before it gets dark.”  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
When he brings Finn back, Clarke is in the midst of trying to set up small campfires to keep everyone warm.  
  
She stills when she sees him. Runs towards him, her face intentionally neutral.  
  
“Finn,” she calls.  
  
Finn strides up to her and wraps his arms around her. “I thought you were dead,” he says. “I thought that you'd been killed - “  
  
Bellamy steps aside. Across camp, he sees the tension in Raven's shoulders as she tries to split lumber for the fires.  
  
“Hey,” he calls.  
  
She grunts.  
  
“Did they fix you up?”  
  
Turning, she levels a derisive look at him before scrubbing at her face with her right hand. “Yeah. Didn't finish my PT, though, so I'm still limping. Clarke's trying to help me. As much as she knows how, anyway.”  
  
He gathers the piles of halved lumber and starts tossing them onto the pile.  
  
“It's good that you're okay,” he says.  
  
“I'm not much for reunions.”  
  
He doesn't look over his shoulder. “Me neither.”  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
He and Clarke are on second watch that first night, and they stumble out to the front of their developing camp at three in the morning or somewhere close to it, eyes ringed with dark circles.  
  
“Did you sleep?” she asks, yawning.  
  
He shakes his head. “Not really.”  
  
They pass the time in comfortable silence, and watch the forest around them slowly begin to wake.  
  
“I think about it,” she says, taking a sip from her makeshift canteen, “and I don't see how we can do it again.”  
  
“We have to,” he says.  
  
“I know,” she says. “And we will. But if you think about it, it's just – we're not as many as we used to be and we're so tired already. I'm so tired. Aren't you?”  
  
He shrugs. “We just have to hold each other up. Same way that we always did. Keep each other going. We have to.”  
  
She chuckles, ducking her head. “You and Octavia?” she says. “That must have been – I don't know how you could have kept it going.”  
  
He turns to look at her. The sun is already beginning as a low glow down under the horizon; soon, they can go in and start getting everyone ready to resume building. For now, it's just the quiet of the early morning and the two of them as people. Not as leaders, not as strategists, just as whoever they happen to be this morning. “You keep going because you know that... someday, it has to end.”  
  
She coughs a laugh. “I used to think the ground was so beautiful,” she says.  
  
“It still is.”  
  
“But that's not what I'm thinking about when I look at it.”  
  
He touches his hand to her shoulder and squeezes it lightly. The ends of her hair brush against his hand, soft as a whisper.  
  
She turns to look at him, her eyes tracking down his profile.  
  
“Bellamy,” she says, quietly, “I really don't think that I could have - “  
  
“Hey,” he interrupts. “Sun's coming up.”  
  
And no matter  how many times he sees this, he'll never get tired of it. The sun seeming to spill light across the ground little by little until the sky is filled with it, until the ground brightens and becomes an alive-thing again, instead of just cold and dark and lifeless.  
  
The light spills across them, too, and his face warms with it. As if the sky had chosen to embrace them like a mother, her touch full of comfort and peace.  
  
She reaches for his other hand with her own, giving it a light squeeze.  
  
“I'm sorry I had to leave you outside the drop ship when...”  
  
He shakes his head. “You made the right call,” he says.  
  
“I thought I killed you.”  
  
“It was the right call. Sometimes... that's the only call to make.”  
  
Her hand is a light weight against his own.  
  
“I don't think I could make it again, if I had to.”  
  
He shrugs. “You never know until you have to.”  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
Without the drop ship, their new camp is more vulnerable than the last, with much less sleeping space, so he settles to bed down against the ground.  
  
One night, she brings him an extra blanket, a folded piece of paper tucked in among its folds.  
  
A sketch of Octavia, smiling. He folds it up again and tucks it into the front pocket of his pants.  
  
“If you need anything, I'm just over there.”  
  
“Clarke,” he says, “It'll be fine.”  
  
She hums indistinctly and heads back to her own makeshift tent.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
He spends his first night in their rebuilt camp staring up at the stars, hoping to fall asleep soon enough to give him some rest before his watch shift starts. The moon is half-obscured behind cloud, and the stars seem to shine at half-brightness.  
  
He supposes that's the difference. The sky – space – always seems removed somehow, distant and infinite.  
  
The ground is firm. Deals with you in its own way, takes care to make sure you know its touch, its warnings.  
  
He didn't grow up believing in the ground, but he didn't need to. The ground is here, in spite of what he thinks, in spite of what he believed, in spite of everything he grew up in. And now he's here, making camp and hoping to survive another day. Another year.  
  
The ground believes in itself; everything else is an afterthought.  
  
Bellamy can understand that.  
  
 _in peace may you leave this shore_  
 _in love may you find the next_  
  
He lays his hand against the soil, feels the wet grains of it cling to his fingertips.  
  
The stars overhead slip behind the clouds, and turn dark.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
